hack GU Volume 1: Return
by David Knight
Summary: AU. Sequel to At the End of The World. Two years after waking up from her coma, Haruka is still trying to fit in and failing. When a friend invites her into The World R:2, she'll discover things she never dreamed possible.


_**Disclaimer:**__ I don't own characters of .hack. That's Namco Bandai. I do however own Kobayashi Haruka and her family. This takes place two years after the story At the End of The World. Any questions can be directed to For now sit back and enjoy the story as I present..._

**.hack//G.U. Vol 1 - Return  
****By David Knight**

_Return 01 – Log On_

"...And so in closing this is how much technology has improved since the event of Pluto's Kiss," Nakamara Daisuke, college professor of technology for the University of Tokyo said to his class. Glancing at his clock he looked at the time. "Well I guess you are all eager to get out of my lecture so I'll end it five minutes early. Now remember, there is an examination of chapters five through seven of your textbooks next week and it will count for a quarter of your grade."

As the students left his classroom, the teacher adjusted his glasses. He did enjoy teaching. He noticed, however, as all of the class left, there was one girl still there. She was a recent addition to his class, and he had been told by the academic administration about her condition. "Kobayashi-san." He addressed the daydreaming brunette.

Twenty one year old Kobayashi Haruka woke up out of her daydream to face her professor. The young woman stood up collecting her books. "Gomen, Nakamara-hakase. Don't worry. I was paying attention. I'll be fine."

"Kobayashi-san," the professor said sternly, getting her to look at him once more. "I won't pretend to know what you went through, being in a coma for over a year and what has happened then. But if you need someone to speak to..."

"I need to get going. I have a tutoring session to attend," Haruka said curtly. "Gotta catch up to the kids two years younger than me. Good day, Nakamara-hakase." Without looking like she was running, she walked out the room as fast as she could.

Nakamara sighed as he watched her go out. "Poor girl."

-----

She knew he was only trying to be kind, but she didn't want pity.

_Megumi, Yuri, Akane. They all died and I lived. Why was I so damn lucky?_ It was not the first time Haruka asked herself that question. Ever since she woke up nearly two years ago, she felt like she had woken up from what was heaven and into hell.

Alright perhaps hell was an exaggeration of her situation, but things since her awakening had been hellish. Nine months of physical therapy to be able to walk again. She refused to leave that hospital in a wheelchair. She wanted to walk under her own power. She couldn't count how many times she had stumbled and fallen until she finally could stand under her own two feet.

The real hell started once she got home. Yes, her parents were overjoyed to have her home, as was Shingo, her little brother. She couldn't believe he was just starting Junior High this year. But it was after getting home, and trying to settle into back into her old life that she found that life was gone. All of her friendships had fallen apart or just broke down with the accident. With her best friends' deaths, everything changed.

She had been a track star; she prided herself in being able to outrun anyone. Now it seemed she could never out run the pain in her heart or the nightmares at night. Nightmares of that horrific night that would never go away.

But among those nightmares were very chaotic dreams. She used the word chaotic because she had no way to describe them. They were scenes from a movie, except scattered all about. Like a mirror is broken and the broken shards fall to the ground, that's how she saw the images from these dreams, in a cascade of broken shards. Haruka herself wasn't in them but there were characters that were oddly dressed, as if they were from a really long time ago in some medieval land.

Three figures seemed to dominate in theses dreams she had, and to be honest despite the weirdness, she preferred them over her nightmares. Two of them were what she thought to be wizards, holding long ornate staffs in each of their hands. One was dressed in grey with silver hair and violet eyes, the other dressed in blue robes with light blue hair and red eyes. Finally, there was a young boy in a red outfit with a cap covering his green hair. Sea blue eyes stared at her from this figure, but she felt the blue wizard staring more at her in her dreams. The other wizard, she didn't know what it was, but it bordered on a feeling of friendship.

She kept these dreams to herself though. She didn't need anyone thinking she was nuts, which she wasn't. If she had weird tendencies or something unexpected happen, she would have gone to see a shrink. She just didn't want to give her parents anything else to worry about.

For now though, she had to find a way move on, no matter how impossible a task that seemed. Here she was, a freshman at Tokyo University, trying to figure out what she wanted to study.

She knocked on the door of the apartment of her tutor, who, quite frankly, was the only friend she actually made since waking up from her coma.

-----

Tsukino Katsumi had been only briefly fiddling with her M2D headset when the knock came at her door. Her head popped upwards and then flashed to the time on the clock. She walked briskly over towards the apartment door and stared out through the peephole. She paused for a moment before opening the door and smiling rather widely.

"Haruka! Time to learn you some stuff then, right? Come in, come in." She spoke happily as she opened the door up and began walking back into the apartment.

"Yeah, advanced calculus is still annoying as it ever was," Haruka muttered as she walked side.

"True, true. But it's important! A strong brain is important," she replied as she pushed her glasses off the bridge of her nose and back onto her face. She took a moment to glance around before finding her textbooks for calculus and picked out two of them, glancing at the both of them before placing one back down.

Haruka broke a slight smile. "Well considering I survived a head-on collision with a truck, I'd say my head at least is strong."

A sly grin cracked on Katsumi's face at the retort. "Match point." She said in mock defeat before sitting down on a couch in front of a table and tapping it. "Now then, fun time," she added with a bare hint of sarcasm.

-----

Three hours later Haruka lay back on the couch. It was well past eight now. "Thank god it's the weekend. No classes for two days."

"And no classes means no interruptions. Which means..." She pumped a fist in the air for a moment and grinned "...nothing stopping me from getting stronger!" She took the textbook from the table and put it back into the bookshelf she plucked it from, accidentally knocking out a box out with some rather unique illustrations on it.

"Whoops." She muttered as she bent down to pick it up. On it were the words 'The World:R2' in rather extravagant lettering.

"The World?" Haruka blinked, noticing how Katsumi was acting. "What's that?"

She blinked for a moment, seemingly frozen in spot, before turning to Haruka and smiling a rather sly smile. "It's an MMORPG...A very popular and highly addicting one." She passed the empty box over to her friend. "One that is also a proving ground for people that want to show their strength."

"You'll forgive me if I have no idea what you are talking about. All I use computers for is to chat, surf the net, and do my homework," Haruka said tiredly. "Shingo's the video game nut in the family. He's probably got this at home." She looked over the box and saw the game title as well as some sample screens. "At least the graphics look good."

Katsumi pressed a palm to her forehead, as if to say _Riiiight, I forgot_ before an idea hit her square in the head. She slowly pulled the palm away from her face to reveal a very full grin.

"No classes for two days...and we may even be able to start tonight..." It was as if she was speaking to herself. "With my rock solid training..." A deeper grin formed as she spoke cryptically.

"You want me to sign up for an online game, which I do not even have equipment for," Haruka said with a stare.

"Yes! Sign up for the game, and I..." She said as she disappeared into a room. She did not let that stop her from talking. "...will provide the needed equipment to play it...if I can find where I stuck it..." She grumbled the last part, and seconds later a loud thump followed it. A couple of minutes of awe inspired silence followed the sudden noise, when a second sudden thump came from the room.

"Yata!" she cheered as she walked out of the room with an open box in her arms.

Haruka had a slight laugh escape from her lips. It wasn't until then that she realized she really hadn't laughed much at all since waking up.

_This is an online game. A game where you get lost in... can you get lost in this?_ She thought about it. Thought about it really hard before making her decision. "Alright. What do I have to do to register?"

-----

An hour later, Katsumi came back to the apartment, a pizza box in hand. It stood to reason they were going to get hungry soon. She found Haruka right where she left her.

That was when she saw the Player Character that Haruka was designing. She had already registered her real self and was now filling out the character profile. Haruka had chosen e her race as human and gender as female, giving her character dark, ragged short purple hair and cerulean eyes. She wore a full suit of lavender leather-like armor that hugged her form and left no place on her body uncovered. She wore a pair of hard leather gauntlets and greaves that were forest green. Attached to her shoulders was an elegant white cape with silver trim.

"Interesting. Going for the whole female knight deal, huh?" Katsumi spoke as she put the pizza on the table and picked up her headset and equipment. "What class did you pick? And for that matter, what's her name?" Convinced that her equipment was good and all thoroughly checked, she began to boot it up.

"Adept Rogue, Blade Brandier as primary class with a Macabre Dancer for her Job extension," Haruka replied calmly.

A slight chuckle escaped Katsumi before she could catch it, and then glanced over at her friend. "Adept Rogues have got it the hardest. For a first timer, you might find yourself a bit frustrated with that class. But it's a good pair of classes to take. Nice balance for one thing." With that, she lifted her headset up and slipped it on. "So, what's her name?"

What do I name her? was Haruka's main question. She already tried using her real name, but that was already taken. She wondered what would actually work out until a name came into her head. No reason what so ever, she just typed it in and hit enter. "Wow. Can't believe no one used it already."

"Mmm? What name did you pick?" She asked as she logged into the world after checking her emails. "Oh, by the way, I'll meet you on the bridge outside the Chaos Gate room. You should know that in The World, we take on the roles of our characters...so no Katsumi while we're in there, okay?"

"Then what do I call you?"

Katsumi smirked. "I'll surprise you. Just walk outside to the bridge and I'll greet you. So what name did you pick?"

"Mia," Haruka answered as she followed the instructions for how to log on. First put the M2D on over her head and then log into the game.

----

Haruka... _Mia. Try to think of yourself as Mia, _she said to herself, trying to play the role of the game here as she looked around. Even though she wasn't looking through her character's eyes, what she saw was incredible. As she turned around, she saw a golden structure with spinning rings, the center of which was a glowing blue sphere. The area itself looked medieval but it definitely seemed realistic.

She could see other players in a variety of outfits but at the center of her vision was her PC, Mia.

_So, this is me in the World._ Mia said to herself. Well first it was time to look over her inventory and her stats. _Level 1, obviously. Weapon: __Blade Guifei. Armor: Rough Armor. Accessory: Simple Necklace._ She had nothing else at all.

It was definitely going to take some practice getting used to this kind of game.

_Better find Katsumi,_ she said to herself as she walked forward and through the doors. She started walking. It really was something, this game The World. It defiantly wasn't your typical video game that's for sure. _Who knows, maybe I can actually have fun._ she mused to herself. She was so engrossed in the scenery that she didn't even look at the people as she walked over the bridge.

"You passed me Mia."

"Katsumi?" Mia turned around trying to find her friend and saw someone waving at her, sitting along the edge of the large stone bridge that she was standing in the middle of. Her eyes went wide as she saw her friend's character.

Katsumi was playing a female Lei Tribe beast character and as she got up, stood at an imposing height that put her above most characters. Her hands and forearms were covered in silver fur, as were her lower legs and feet. She wore a rather revealing royal purple and crimson red set of battle attire, leaving a little to the imagination and a lot of flesh to anyone with a pair of eyes. From each of her shoulders, there extended a strip of purple cloth that slid down her back and rested against her skin..

Her eyes were scarlet and slanted in a bestial fashion. Her hair was medium length, with several strands falling in front of her face and was a shade of silver that was ever so slightly darker than her fur and faded into a white.

"You have got to be kidding me," Mia muttered in disbelief as Katsumi's character walking over to her. "How did you come up with such a PC?"

"Lots and lots of thinking and plotting," she said a bit cryptically with a smirk on her face. "You should have seen my original character."

"Original character?" Mia blinked.

She had wolfish grin on her face. "Back when I played the original The World. I was known then what I am now. Ouka of the Divine Fist."

**To Be Continued...**

_Author's Notes: For those that don't know. Ouka is a character from the Legend of Twilight Manga and Anime, though I am following the Manga for her character. Hope you like the surprise though. There will be other old characters from the original .hack series showing up. Perhaps even from .hack//SIGN._

_Next Chapter, Ouka takes Mia out to a field to get experience to the World, though they'll be getting more than they bargained for._


End file.
